Dr. Mark Powell is an atmospheric scientist for NOAA's Hurricane Research Division (HRD), and is now stationed at the Florida State University Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies (COAPS) in Tallahassee, Florida. He began his NOAA career in 1978 with the National Hurricane Research Laboratory . Dr. Powell has flown into 13 hurricanes and served as lead project scientist on NOAA P-3 hurricane research flights. He has served as principal investigator on numerous competitive research projects funded by government agencies and corporate entities including the Coastal Ocean Program, Everglades Restoration, High Performance Computing and Communications Program, National Institute for Science and Technology, National Institute for Building Sciences, U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, U. S. Weather Research Program, Joint Hurricane Test Bed, and the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation.

LTJG Jeffrey Pereira is a NOAA Corps Commissioned Officer currently assigned to the National Hurricane Center’s Storm Surge Unit. While he oversees public outreach, his primary responsibility is forecasting the storm surge threat for land-falling hurricanes as well as model storm surge simulations of hypothetical storms for federal, state, and local emergency managers used in evacuation planning and storm preparation. Mr. Pereira’s previous work experience within the NOAA Corps includes an assignment as Junior Officer aboard the NOAA Ship Rainier.